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How does the US know whether you have overstayed your tourist visa without having an exit stamp on your passport? How is it really calculated?

phoog
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edocetirwi
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    in the old days they had no clue whatsoever. i'm pretty sure they do today - and I for one don't know how. perhaps just mining airline data? – Fattie Feb 23 '16 at 17:00
  • This leaves out people crossing by foot to Mexico and like you mentioned, sailing off on a private boat etc., Since there are no exit checks, I'm just curious how they do it. – edocetirwi Feb 23 '16 at 17:19
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    Are you talking about situation where someone overstayed in the past, but did leave, and is now re-entering? Do you want to know how the US officials at the new point of entry could tell that happened? – Colin McLarty Feb 23 '16 at 17:31
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    @JoeBlow There've recently been some news articles about congressional testimony in which DHS officials have said that they don't in fact know how many have overstayed their visas. See for example http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/02/us/politics/us-doesnt-know-how-many-foreign-visitors-overstay-visas.html. – phoog Feb 23 '16 at 17:48
  • When I was living in Canada, I used to enter and leave the US regularly by land. One day I entered (by chance) the very last day that by previous 3-month validity would expire. The officer asked me when I had left. It did not appear to be in his system. – gerrit Feb 24 '16 at 11:13
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    @gerrit sometimes they'll ask questions they know the answer to to see how you react or whether you lie. – phoog Feb 24 '16 at 17:03

3 Answers3

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They don't. The US does not know how many people have overstayed their visas. This implies that in any individual case, the US can't be sure whether a person has complied with visa terms.

As others have mentioned, the US tracks exits by gathering data from the airlines and other carriers. However, because the US doesn't have exit controls, the system can easily be defeated. See, for example, the New York Times article U.S. Doesn’t Know How Many Foreign Visitors Overstay Visas.

A visitor to the US could fool the system by checking in for an international flight (for example, to London) and then swapping boarding passes with someone on a domestic flight (for example, to Chicago). The visitor then flies to Chicago, and the confederate flies to London. The US government believes that the vistor has left the country, but in fact, the visitor is in Chicago.

phoog
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    Underestimating Uncle Sam a little too much? :P – Hanky Panky Feb 24 '16 at 06:35
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    International flights usually have "passport and ticket" checks at the gate precisely to stop confederates sneaking on board. – lambshaanxy Feb 24 '16 at 07:16
  • @HankyPanky I don't think so. The feds have failed to register several of my wife's exits, without any attempt at deceit. In the linked article, they about that the current system is full of holes. Why do you think I'm underestimating them? – phoog Feb 24 '16 at 16:04
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    It was just a light hearted question referring to the phrase Uncle Sam knows everything :) – Hanky Panky Feb 24 '16 at 16:32
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    @jpatokal I encounter such pass-and-ID checks routinely in other countries. In the US, not so much. See for example https://youtu.be/ATSMpnrXeZo (start watching at 2:20 for the boarding pass scan). – phoog Feb 24 '16 at 17:00
  • @phoog often there is a person checking passports and boarding passes in the line leading up to the boarding pass scanner – ajd Sep 28 '19 at 16:45
  • @ajd in the US? Sometimes there is, but sometimes there isn't. They do seem to be more frequent lately; perhaps some new regulation has gone into effect. – phoog Sep 29 '19 at 07:28
  • @phoog interesting, I've never seen it not happen – ajd Sep 29 '19 at 12:55
  • @ajd see the video I linked to, where it doesn't happen. I don't remember what search terms I used when I found it, unfortunately. – phoog Sep 30 '19 at 03:01
  • @phoog the video doesn't show what I described not happening - it shows that they do not check the passport when they scan the boarding pass, but it does not show any previous point in the line when another agent may have checked the passport – ajd Sep 30 '19 at 03:16
  • @ajd fair enough. But I've flown from JFK a few dozen times on both Austrian and Lufthansa, as well as on several other European carriers, and I can assure you that I've never seen such a thing flying from the US. Either they check the passport when they scan the boarding card, or they check it only at the checkin desk. If the passenger has checked in online, they'll typically call the passenger to the desk at the gate before boarding begins so they can verify the passport. – phoog Sep 30 '19 at 03:56
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The US uses what they call a "biographical entry/exit system," which means that your biographical data (passport information) is tracked to determine when visitors enter and exit the country.

Entrance data is collected by immigration officers at points of entry, but as you note, the US has no exit controls, so where do they get exit data? Generally from airlines and the Canadian and Mexican authorities. The system is not perfect: there are some ways in which people leaving through Mexico aren't properly tracked, and sometimes there are data mismatches when people enter and exit on different passports.

Sometimes, if the system has gone wrong, the US will accuse you of overstaying when you haven't. In this case, you will want to carry proof that you did depart on time: plane tickets, passport stamps from other countries (you can always request a stamp from Canadian or Mexican officials), etc...

If you think that your arrival/departure records may be incorrect, you can check them online at https://i94.cbp.dhs.gov/I94.

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Zach Lipton
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    You can literally walk or drive right into Mexico and nobody will say a word to you. If you want a Mexican entry stamp, you have to find an immigration officer, and that could be difficult. – Michael Hampton Feb 23 '16 at 18:09
  • @MichealHampton, You can but you'll need to buy an FM-T, and get a stamp, if you are staying more than 72 hours or leaving the border zone for anywhere other than back to the US. They'll report this to the US. I think it is only for Mexican residents that a US exit might not be documented (which may be one source of overstay fuzziness). – user38879 Feb 24 '16 at 22:47
  • @Dennis what about driving into Canada? – Gnudiff Sep 28 '19 at 20:32
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The airlines will tell them.

Remember in the good old days of the green I-94W forms (this might actually still happen today for some countries?), they used to staple a part of the form in your passport? The check-in agent was then supposed to collect that part of the form, and it was supposed to be used by INS to check for overstayers (and more), though it probably wasn't always very accurate.

Nowadays this is just sent directly from the airlines computer systems. Whether it actually works is another matter.

jcaron
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